Nobody knows me on here, so I'll have to keep it that way after I post this. Get professional help. A combination of COVID-19, a high paying/high stress consulting job, and a history OCD related stress & paranoia pushed me into a VERY bad place. I was considering suicide. I didn't go outside for weeks if I could avoid it. I'd go 3-4 days w/o a shower (out of character for me). I started subconsciously punishing myself via starvation (Shitty Life Pro-Tip - drink a lot of water & you won't feel hungry! Eating disorders FTW!) because I wasn't hungry & didn't need to eat because I wasn't really doing anything all day. I cut off from people who reached out to me.
I was fortunate to be well off financially after 5 months to walk away from the consulting job. My wife didn't see it because I hid it from her. I reached a braking point when I walked way from the consulting & was well supported by the engagement manager. I took two months off, I started seeing a counselor (virtually, thanks COVID-19), and I started on Prozac. I'm not "done" yet, but I'm an order of magnitude closer to who I was before all this happened. I've started to gain weight back. Suicide no longer holds its appeal. I can consider the idea that there might be a world after the year 2020, and that I should be a part of it.
Sorry - I know this is rambling. Let me pull back to my point: getting help is the only thing that would help. If you could change yourself, by yourself, you would have by now. It takes the push of someone else's perspective to move you, because you simply can't move yourself. Your best bet is a professional - you have your own bias and trust issues with friends & family, no matter how much they mean to you. Hang in there. No matter how bad life gets, don't let anyone, let alone you, tell you that you don't deserve to be a part of it.
I'm no expert, but from personal experience, when you only manage to eat toast and a hot dog at lunch, or a granola bar + yogurt and some pasta at dinner along with multiple liters of water for a day because "you just don't feel hungry" and you end up losing so much weight you need to buy new jeans and t-shirts (which you're too depressed to pick out, so your wife buys them for you)- there's something going on.
None invalidation taken:) It's a strange experience to go through - hard to describe. This strange loop where I didn't feel hungry and didn't feel that I should eat "because I was supposed to".
And don’t underestimate the potential seriousness of this. My sister died in August from an eating disorder. She was 53. She did not exhibit any outward signs of depression. She seemed happy. But she weighed only 70 lbs when she died.
Here’s a quick litmus test to determine if you have an eating disorder. Are you an unhealthy weight? If the answer is yes then you should take a hard look at your eating and exercise habits. An unhealthy weight is the primary effect of (virtually) all eating disorders.
I was fortunate to be well off financially after 5 months to walk away from the consulting job. My wife didn't see it because I hid it from her. I reached a braking point when I walked way from the consulting & was well supported by the engagement manager. I took two months off, I started seeing a counselor (virtually, thanks COVID-19), and I started on Prozac. I'm not "done" yet, but I'm an order of magnitude closer to who I was before all this happened. I've started to gain weight back. Suicide no longer holds its appeal. I can consider the idea that there might be a world after the year 2020, and that I should be a part of it.
Sorry - I know this is rambling. Let me pull back to my point: getting help is the only thing that would help. If you could change yourself, by yourself, you would have by now. It takes the push of someone else's perspective to move you, because you simply can't move yourself. Your best bet is a professional - you have your own bias and trust issues with friends & family, no matter how much they mean to you. Hang in there. No matter how bad life gets, don't let anyone, let alone you, tell you that you don't deserve to be a part of it.